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Dentistry is changing – fast. The good news is that there’s still plenty of opportunity, plenty of options and great profit in dentistry, the biggest risk is staying the same.

If you want 2018 to be your best year in practice, you can’t do what you did last year.

It’s time to claim what you want and create a plan to get you there, so I’m inviting you to join me and dentistry’s leading experts, for The 2018 Future of Dentistry Event. During this free, online event, you’ll get a practical plan to transform your practice for the future and make 2018 your best year ever!

Click here to REGISTER for this special event. Don’t let the fast approaching wave of change overcome you. Learn how you can position yourself and your practice for an unbelievably successful 2018 and beyond!

I’m continually being asked the best way to do patient testimonial videos, so I’m going to lay it out for you.

People ask in part because I am always saying that patient videos are the most powerful marketing tools available, and perhaps the most versatile. You can post them on your website, on your YouTube channel, on Facebook, and in your Google and Yelp profiles. And people love watching videos. Facebook and Snapchat both have over 8 billion video views a day. Yes, I said billion!

Requesting and making videos should be someone’s specific responsibility in the office, and in some ways everyone’s. Every team member should be willing to request this from a patient they believe will do a good testimonial. But every office should have one point person–the Facebook Geek, I call them–that is in charge of regularly doing these, like one a week, and then posting them in all the appropriate places.

Here are the steps:

STEP ONE: ASK FOR A TESTIMONIAL

Identify a patient who might be a good candidate, either because they just had a great result, or they’ve already praised the practice in some way. If they just said, “You are all so nice here. I’m so happy I found you.” That’s your cue to say, “We’d love it if you would do a short video saying that for us to use on social media. You know how important that is nowadays.” Don’t say crazy stuff like, “Please help us promote our practice,” or, “We really need your help getting new patients.” Don’t sound desperate.

If the person is reluctant, just say, “If you don’t like it we won’t use it. But all you have to do is take 30 seconds and tell us what it’s like to be a patient of ours.” If they’re still hesitant, then back off.

STEP TWO: RECORD ON A SMARTPHONE

This is what makes the testimonial real and credible: You didn’t make a big production out of it. You made it like a video that they do themselves all the time. Using a smartphone camera is also less intimidating to the patient. One more important thing: shoot it in horizontal mode [I’m amending this from my original post] because in most media it will look much better. The one challenge is that 70% of Facebook viewers are watching on mobile phones, and people don’t like to turn them. This is why Facebook’s new Canvas ad format is a good example of the direction this is all going. The solution is to shoot through Instagram in horizontal mode, and then you can modify the shape if you want to.

You’re looking for four things from the patient:

sincerity–you want them to be believable;

enthusiasm–low energy is not persuasive or watchable;

brevity–it should be at the MOST, 60 seconds long. Closer to 30 is better;

the practice/dentist’s name–this “labels” the video internally.

WARNING: Don’t let them talk about their treatment in the video! This qualifies as “patient health information,” and this is where the HIPAA challenge arises. It would require you to create a release from the patient describing the specific treatment and who the audience would be that would see it. Too much trouble. The fact that they agreed to make the video would seem to me to qualify as a release, but the government doesn’t see it that way.

However, the patient can make a video on their own phone and post it to their Facebook wall. Patients can say whatever they want in their own posts on social media, because they can’t violate their own HIPAA. If they do it that way, then you can share that video on your practice page.

STEP THREE: SHOW THE VIDEO TO THE PATIENT FOR APPROVAL

If you did more than one take, ask them which one they like. But make sure they approve you using it.

STEP FOUR: GET A SIGNED RELEASE

If you don’t already have one with the patient, get one, to use their image and video in all media, including social media, in perpetuity. If they won’t sign one, then don’t use the video. If you have an account with HR for Health, they can provide one, otherwise use LegalZoom.

STEP FIVE: ASK THEM TO SHARE IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

If they did it on their phone, obviously they can share it on Instagram or Facebook.

STEP SIX: POST IT ON ALL YOUR DIGITAL LOCATIONS

Website (your website should have a separate page for patient testimonials, with a link from the home page. If not, read this blog.)

YouTube channel

Yelp profile

Google+ page

Facebook (start with Instagram and have it post automatically–the Facebook geek knows what I’m talking about)

LinkedIn

Twitter

As a huge motivational bonus, show them to your team in morning huddles. Letting everyone know how much they are appreciated by patients is a great way to start the day.

Here are examples of the right and wrong way to do videos:

The above one mentions the treatment, cost, negative aspects of the experience, but is in the right framing–horizontal.

This one doesn’t mention treatment, is positive and energetic, and says the dentist’s name. But it’s shot vertically, so it’s only good for Facebook mobile. Almost there.

Make it a habit to do videos. As I said, they are the most credible and versatile marketing tool you have or your practice. Do one today!

The moment many of you have been waiting for is here: my latest book, released last September, is now available on Audible! We have found that Audible is the best medium for an audio book, and you can find it right here: http://amzn.to/1T0YCug.

The price is $19.95, and unfortunately because it is Amazon I can’t discount it for anyone. 🙁

It will NOT be released on CD, as it has become an archaic (and expensive) medium, and Audible accounts are free, and even have a subscription model.

Now that I’ve managed to get this done, I promise to start blogging regularly again!

Every business dreams of coming up on the first page in an organic web search. And every day I talk to dentists who want to improve the SEO of their website. All while Google keeps changing how the results look and what satisfies their search algorithms. They just did it again on August 6th in a fairly big way.

Let’s talk about that change first. The big differences are:

1. The map results on computers now only show 3 practices. This now mirrors what happens on mobile phones.

2. The full address of the practice is gone.

3. Everything “above the fold”–what is immediately viewable on a computer screen–is now essentially paid for.

There are still listings of organic results on the first page, meaning if you scroll down you will see them, and not have to click to see the next page of results, but in this particular search Yelp had the first three “organic” positions. This is because they know how to maximize SEO, and can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making sure they are doing everything that Google wants. You can’t do that.

Also, notice that on the right the paid ads do get their address to show up. And they can even offer specials or a have a specific message. But clearly Google makes it easy to get to the paid advertisers’ websites. And you can be sure that the bidding for those places is escalating all the time.

This is all happening because Google is in the ad sales business, and they want you to pay to appear. The results are even more narrowed toward paying advertisers when you search on a mobile device (which is where more than 60% of searches begin, by the way.)

Face it, when you have 80% of dentists who now have a website, they’re not all going to show up on the first page organically. It’s not physically possible, and clearly getting more challenging all the time.

So what should your strategy be?

You still need to find as many ways to create good SEO as possible. But don’t fall for some company guaranteeing that they can get you on the first page. There are too many factors out of anyone’s control. Read my previous blog on this for more insight on that. It’s more true now that ever.

Here’s what you need:

1. A dynamic website that allows you to change content easily yourself and have constant new content feeding to it automatically. It should be simple, modern-looking, and easy to navigate.

2. Reviews are powerful content, and if you are surveying your patients using PatientActivator or some other application, then you can have those appear automatically.

3. Embed Yelp reviews in your site. It will only show three, but it will keep people from leaving your website and going to Yelp to see reviews.

4. Add new patient testimonial videos every week.

5. Write a blog, and link it to your website. It should have your town included in most posts, as well as some key dental phrases. Your blog is for Google to read. Most humans won’t. So being local and with relevant words is what matters most.

6. Make sure all the directories across the web have the exact same information about your practice. ReputationMonitor, which is included with PatientActivator, makes it much easier to do this.

7. Have a form where patients can request an appointment.

8. Make sure your website is responsive, meaning it plays properly on every device–particularly mobile phones–and in every browser. The first test is to look at your website on your own phone. Easy to read? Pretty? Better be!

But overall, concentrate on giving a great patient experience, because your website is only one part of your promotion and practice awareness. Social media and review sites will play a larger and larger part of that with every passing month. It all has to work together, with your website as the hub. And what patients post out there matters more than ever.

We build websites with our WebDirector product, but there are other reputable companies out there as well. You can tell who they are because they don’t promise magical results. We will also help you integrate all the social media aspects that you need to make everything look consistent and connect to each other.

It’s a daunting, moving target, I know. But it’s the way of the world, and ignoring it or thinking it doesn’t relate to your neighborhood is going to prove to be failed strategy. So stay on it!

Google+, as far as dental practices go, is over. Let me be the first one to tell you that you can stop posting there. Google+ is morphing away from being a social media site, as it failed the “me too” challenge with Facebook. I know, in my book I told you to mirror everything you did on Facebook on Google+. Stuff changes–don’t shoot the messenger! However, you should still request reviews for your Google+ page, as they will still show up in a Google search, and are valuable for SEO and influencing searching consumers. [Thanks to Jason K. for pointing that out!]

Your activity, likes, and recommendations on your Facebook page are no longer indexed by Google. No one knows exactly when this happened, but it’s over. So you get no Google juice (my term for SEO) out of your activity. This doesn’t mean you stop using Facebook. It’s still the best medium to show the experience of being a patient of yours.

On April 21, Google is modifying its algorithms (how it ranks websites) with respect to mobile sites. If your mobile site is not responsive or reformatted to play well on mobile devices, it is going to hurt your ranking. Not the first time I’ve told you how important the mobile version of your website is.

74% of consumers will abandon your mobile website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Not the second time I’ve told you how important the mobile version of your website is. More than 60% of web searches begin on smartphones, by the way.

Videos now start playing automatically on Facebook as people scroll down their wall. (Unless you turn the function off.) This is engaging FB users in a big way. How big? Well, media analyst Socialbakers’ recent study showed video has twice the organic reach on Facebook as photos. And Facebook also has twice the number of videos with 1 million views that YouTube has. That’s serious.

Because of this, I maintain that patient testimonial videos are your best marketing tool. Also, make sure you post natively on Facebook, which means don’t link a YouTube video or other URL source, upload it using Instagram or straight to Facebook with your computer or device. If you don’t know how to get them done, read this blog post.

Physicists now believe that gravity can leak into parallel universes, creating tiny black holes, and that the Large Hadron Collider may be able to detect them. This may not seem important now, but wait 50 years. You’ll be saying, “Yeah, I knew about that back in 2015!”

That’s it for now. But expect more changes. Social media is a rapidly moving target. And of course, if your website isn’t playing right on mobile, check out WebDirector.

Fred, your statement under #2 is only partially true, “So you get no Google juice (my term for SEO) out of your activity.”

Cyrus Shepard, a super-smart SEO guy at MOZ, wrote the following just a couple of days ago… “The basic argument goes like this: ‘Google says they don’t use Facebook likes or Tweet counts to rank websites. Therefore, social activity doesn’t matter to SEO.’ This statement is half right, but can you guess which half? It’s true that Google does not use metrics such as Facebook shares or Twitter Followers directly in search rankings. On the other hand, successful social activity can have significant secondary effects on your SEO efforts. Social activity helps address two of the major tasks facing SEO: 1) Search engine discovery and indexation 2) Content distribution, which leads to links and shares.”

I wholeheartedly agree when you say, “It (social) is still the best medium to show the experience of being a patient of yours.” Spot on! However, in addition, there ARE SEO benefits that result from social media activity. We see it with our clients all the time.

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